Modest expectations for U.S.-China summit
The president of the United States, Donald Trump, arrived at the high-stakes summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping seeking to raise expectations around the talks. Trump announced that he would urge Xi to “open up” the Chinese economy and revealed the presence of a delegation made up of top-level executives, including Tesla’s Elon Musk, Apple’s Tim Cook and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang.
Summit background
As Trump and Xi prepare to wrap up two days of meetings on Friday, expectations for the outcome of the meeting are modest at best. The leaders of the two countries are expected to agree to extend the one-year pause in the trade war that was established during the summit in South Korea in October. However, the expectation is for a stabilization of relations, not a revitalization, between the two largest economies in the world, which are locked in a rivalry that spans everything from trade and artificial intelligence to the issue of Taiwan.
Claire E. Reade, senior counsel at Arnold & Porter and a former official at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), commented on the current state of relations. “It’s important to be clear-eyed about the condition of the relationship here,” Reade said. “China doesn’t trust the U.S. and wants to surpass the United States in what it sees as a long-term global competition,” she added, noting that this limits what can be agreed upon.
Trade negotiations and deals
Although Trump and Xi have yet to set the final contours of any trade deal, the U.S. side has signaled that several deals are in the works. In an interview with Fox News that aired on Thursday, Trump said China planned to invest “hundreds of billions of dollars” in companies led by the CEOs in his delegation, without providing further details.
In addition, Trump administration officials indicated that China would be willing to increase its purchases of U.S. agricultural and energy products, as well as place a large order for Boeing aircraft and work on creating a “Board of Investment” to manage investments between the two countries.
Prospects for opening the Chinese market
Taiyi Sun, associate professor of political science at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia, noted that a “real opening” of the Chinese market would likely focus first on sectors where economic complementarity is most evident. “Agricultural products such as soybeans and beef, as well as high-value-added manufactured goods like Boeing aircraft, are natural areas for expansion, as they match existing demand in China with U.S. export strengths,” Sun observed.
He also said a “gradual” opening for U.S. companies in sectors such as financial services could be possible. However, he stressed that these areas are more politically and institutionally sensitive in China, which would make progress incremental rather than immediate.
Supply chain challenges and vulnerabilities
Gabriel Wildau, senior vice president at Teneo, a global consulting firm, said both sides are seeking to address supply chain vulnerabilities exposed by the trade war. “The war in Iran has likely increased U.S. vulnerability to China’s control of rare earth exports, given the need to rebuild munitions stockpiles depleted in that conflict,” Wildau said. “Washington will therefore be willing to offer tariff relief – or at least assurances that it won’t impose new tariffs – in exchange for Beijing’s commitment to maintain rare earth export flows.”
Restrained trade relations
Although Trump and Xi agreed to roll back some trade barriers during the summit in South Korea, business and trade between the U.S. and China remain severely constrained after a decade of mutual economic retaliation. The average U.S. tariff on Chinese goods stood at 47.5% after the South Korea summit, up from 3.1% before Trump’s first term, according to data from the Peterson Institute for International Economics. China’s average tariff on U.S. goods, meanwhile, was 31.9%, up from 8.4% in 2018.
Bilateral trade in goods totaled about US$ 415 billion in 2025, a sharp drop from the peak of US$ 690 billion in 2022. Carsten Holz, an expert on the Chinese economy at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, noted that China has fewer incentives to make concessions to the U.S. than before, amid the growth of its domestic industries. “In many industrial sectors, companies from the People’s Republic of China hold leading or controlling positions,” Holz said. “As a result, the PRC economy has little to gain from further opening to the U.S. and will likely offer only largely symbolic gestures.”
Limits of U.S. leverage
Deborah Elms, head of trade policy at the Hinrich Foundation in Singapore, expressed similar views on the limits of U.S. leverage. “Basically, Trump expects China to buy more goods from America and allow U.S. companies to operate more freely in China,” Elms said. “What is he offering?” she asked. “Very little, mainly because Trump sees the bilateral relationship as one in which the U.S. has been fair and China has not.”
Reade, the former USTR official, added that Xi would not agree to any measures that “harm Chinese interests in any way.” “Instead, China may offer cost-free ‘gifts’ to the U.S. – for example, it could take short-term actions to remove trade barriers it has imposed on beef trade. It may buy U.S. goods it needs,” Reade explained. “If it allows the purchase of U.S. tech products, it will only be because it needs them right now,” she added, stressing that this does not interfere with China’s strategic plans to eliminate its dependence on American technology in the long run.
